Central Valley school district won’t ban pro-gay yearbook quotes

The superintendent of a small Central California school district, sued by two members of a campus gay rights group, says their high school yearbook will include quotes from both students — quotes the yearbook’s faculty adviser had rejected as “politically divisive.”

It was all a misunderstanding that should have been resolved without a lawsuit, Darren Sylvia, superintendent of the Chawanakee Unified School District in Madera County, said Friday. But the American Civil Liberties Union, which sued on behalf of the youths, said it won’t drop the case until the district adopts policies against censorship of student speech advocating gay rights.

When Minarets High School in O’Neals asked seniors to send in quotes to accompany their yearbook photos, 18-year-old Steven Madrid wrote in December, “I think that the best day will be when we no longer talk about being gay or straight — it’s not a ‘gay wedding,’ it’s just a ‘wedding.’ It’s not a ‘gay marriage,’ it’s just ‘a marriage.’”

His 17-year-old classmate, Mikayla Garaffa, president of the school’s Genders & Sexualities Alliance Network, offered this observation:“If Harry Potter has taught us anything, it’s that no one deserves to live in a closet,” a reference to the cupboard the fictional wizard was kept in as a child by his aunt and uncle because they were afraid of his magical skills.

After hearing rumors that school officials objected to their quotes, the suit said, Mikayla sent an email in January to the school principal, Daniel Ching, and the yearbook faculty adviser, Juan Ortiz, saying there was “no excuse for discriminating against students based on personal views.” She attached a letter from the ACLU citing past cases, including a 2008 ruling by a federal judge in Florida against a school district that had suspended 11 students for wearing gay pride buttons and similar emblems in support of a classmate.

Ortiz, who was also one of their teachers, replied that evening with an email to both students saying the yearbook could not include quotes that were “politically divisive,” the suit said. “Sexuality can be a divisive topic in school as well as the community,” he wrote.

The youths reviewed past yearbooks and found quotes celebrating students’ Christian identities and another identifying a student as a supporter of President Trump, the suit said. Filed Wednesday in Madera County Superior Court, the suit alleged violations of free speech — protected for students by the U.S. Supreme Court since 1969 — and of several California laws, including one barring school districts from promoting a “discriminatory bias” based on sexual orientation.

“I believe my existence should not be looked at differently because of who I may love,” Madrid said in a statement released by his lawyers. Mikayla, his co-plaintiff, said she wanted “to speak up for other students who may not feel comfortable sharing their story.”

Sylvia, superintendent of the 1,300-student district, said in an interview that the reported rejection of the quotes was “a misunderstanding between the teacher and the students.”

“We feel that we’re a very open district tolerant of all students,” Sylvia said. He said he makes the final decision in such disputes and told the ACLU, before the suit was filed, that the quotes would be published in the yearbook.

But ACLU attorney Abré Conner said she contacted Sylvia shortly before filing the suit and did not hear back until afterward, when he told her he had reviewed her court filing and would approve publication of the quotes. She provided an email from Ching, the principal, who described a conversation with Sylvia that was consistent with Conner’s timeline.

The youths and the ACLU hope to resolve their case without court action, Conner said, but only if they can “make sure the district understands that all students have rights.”

Bob Egelko has been a reporter since June 1970. He spent 30 years with the Associated Press, covering news, politics and occasionally sports in Los Angeles, San Diego and Sacramento, and legal affairs in San Francisco from 1984 onward. He worked for the San Francisco Examiner for five months in 2000, then joined The Chronicle in November 2000.

His beat includes state and federal courts in California, the Supreme Court and the State Bar. He has a law degree from McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento and is a member of the bar. Coverage has included the passage of Proposition 13 in 1978, the appointment of Rose Bird to the state Supreme Court and her removal by the voters, the death penalty in California and the battles over gay rights and same-sex marriage.